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Holden has never sold a battery-electric car and only dipped its toes in the market with the Holden Volt, a reskinned version of the first-generation Chevrolet Volt. Some environmental groups believe the brand missed a golden opportunity to forge an electric future with the first imported Commodore, but Holden says otherwise.

According to a report from The Guardian published last Friday, groups felt Holden could have shown the future way forward in Australia with a hybrid or electric Commodore. The calls for an electrified Commodore come from a market that’s not so privy to EVs. According to the report, 0.1 percent of new car sales in Australia were electric in 2016.

Nevermind the fact that General Motors does not build an electric version of any car sharing the E2 platform. The closest variant is the Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid. Holden had its own reasons for sticking solely with internal-combustion engines.

“Almost all [of electric cars sold in 2016] were well over $60,000,” a Holden spokesperson said. “Commodore has been an affordable Australian family car for 40 years and its accessibility and value is an important part of its DNA.”

The spokesperson added that Holden will continue to analyze the market for a potential electric-car introduction, but he added that mass-market EVs are likely “a few years away.”

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7 Comments

Environmentalists seem to be more of a plague on the world than industry lately. They’ve gone from the hippy coexist mentality to the militant demanding types. There’s a compromise in there somewhere when we can look at all the facts that haven’t been bought and paid for.

That’s right, every single environmentalist is exactly the same, and they’re all following the same arc of changes in the same way as you describe. GreenPeace wasn’t militant, and now they are. Bicycle path clearance teams weren’t militant, and now they are. Right???

Sort of like Trumpette’s they’re all exactly alike as each other, right?

When are we going to be honest with ourselves and call these groups what they really are which is “Political Agenda Control Groups”? They are not concerned about the environment. If they were, the would stop calling electric cars Zero Emission Vehicles. The amount of environmental destruction that takes place making the battery alone kills that argument. Then the fact that the grid will have trouble keeping up when everyone plugs in at 6 pm. Fire up that coal fired power plant!

The same people that can’t solve my IT issues at work are the ones making all these promises. Somehow, nobody has a world to say about Jet Aircraft because Leo and Al need those to spread their nonsense.

The Holden Volt wasn’t a “a reskinned version of the first-generation Chevrolet Volt” – it was a Chevy Volt, but with RHD (probably Vauxhall Ampera bits). It even had the Holden badge stuck on the grille with the Chevy badge outline underneath, lazy/cheap on GM’s behalf.

Holden priced it at $69,999 RRP (MSRP) and not so surprisingly sold very few. Which was probably the plan… at least the dealers have had a taste of hybrids and had some skilling-up.